This invention relates to a woodworking power tool which is operative to provide the functions of nine commonly used wood- working tools which have many design inadequacies as discussed below. The woodworking tool of the present invention provides the ease of use and high productivity associated hitherto with large and expensive industrial equipment which the majority of woodworkers cannot afford to purchase and have insufficient floor space to accommodate. For the majority of woodworkers, the present invention provides both a compact and affordable tool and improvement to the portable bench frame shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,974 issued on Jul. 24, 1979 to the Applicant of the present application, which features ease of use and increased productivity, while providing also a neat and safe work environment.
The following power tools commonly used with a bench frame in wood working are problematic:
(1) Radial arm saws: They are prone to loss of alignment, and they require constant checking and, often, re-alignment during use in order to function properly. Such saws are equipped with bevel scales which are too small for accurate reading. The inaccurate reading is compounded by the location of a motor handle which is positioned in front of the bevel scale so that it obstructs the clear reading of the scale and increases the inaccuracy of the reading through parallax error. Both the motor handle and a yoke lock lever swivel with the yoke around the horizontal plane when the yoke is swiveled such that it denies the woodworker the use of the handle in three out of four yoke positions, and making it necessary to grope around the yoke for the yoke lock lever in such three out of four yoke positions. Furthermore, the motor handle tilts with the motor, when the motor is tilted clockwise or counter-clockwise for bevel sawing and other functions, rendering the handle an inconstant factor. Crosscutting wide materials cannot be done with most radial arm saws and mitering wide materials also cannot be done with any radial arm saw.
(2) Table saws: They, too, can suffer alignment loss, although to a much lesser degree. Crosscutting, spaced grooving and accurate mitering, especially compound mitering, of wide materials are difficult to do with a table saw. Changing saw blades, or replacing them with a dado blade or a disc sander is inconvenient.
(3) Miter saws: They are prone to a loss of alignment so that they must be checked constantly and, often, re-aligned in order to function properly. They are designed to crosscut and miter only narrow materials; and they cannot handle materials which are very short in length.
(4) Routers: Only the portable hand-held type routers are affordable by most woodworkers. Such routers are normally mounted in an upside-down manner below specially designed router tables so as to be used as stationary tools. However, when mounted in such manner, their performance is extremely poor because they are difficult to adjust accurately when they are in an inverted position.
(5) Drill presses: Both table top and floor models in general use have short throats and cannot drill holes in the center of wide work pieces.
(6) Lathes: Most lathes are designed for use with hand-held chisels which blunt very quickly and require frequent sharpening. Tracer attachments with more durable cutting bits for such lathes are expensive and can handle small diameter turnings only, rendering the much larger swing capacity of the lathe meaningless.
(7) Band saws: Their tables provide inadequate surface ahead and behind the blade for such work as sawing cabriole legs for tables and chairs. A larger, auxiliary table has to be made and attached over the one furnished with the tool. Although auxiliary tables are easy to make, they are difficult to attach to band saw tables.
(8) Fully-featured multi-purpose tools: Many of their functions necessitate the attachment and detachment of heavy accessories to and from a basic unit thereby entailing substantial physical effort to perform. Moreover, the various accessories require a considerable storage space.
With the exception of lathes, to which the subject does not apply, none of the tools aforementioned provides adequate support for large materials; and in order to use them with large materials, it is necessary to use additional, mostly free-standing, supports. Due to their instability and the problems in attaching them reliably to the frame of the tool, such additional supports affect the accuracy of the work; and they can be hazardous in use and clutter the work area when they are not in use. Additionally, most of the tools aforementioned do not feature easy servicing in the event of motor failure, resulting in a lengthy work stoppage while the motor is being serviced. The present invention reduces any such work stoppage to a few minutes by permitting the failed motor to be replaced very quickly and easily with an inexpensive spare motor.
Beyond the elimination of the aforesaid inadequacies, the design of the tool of the present invention permits it to be made in different sizes, including custom sizes, because, with a single exception, the tooling and components remain constant. The single exception lies in the length of raw material which has to be cut to size and, consequently, may be cut to suit the size of tool desired. That permits several size tools to be manufactured simultaneously to meet market demand, without necessitating additional tooling or increased material and component inventory.